Holy Sick Batman!

One day before our Disney trip and *BAM* some kind of virus hits me like a brick last night. Got the chills, nausea, and mild aches. Needless to say the nasea came to fruition last night as well as some other unpleasantness...Not going to get into detail... Just had my first food of the day, a piece of toast, yum. Still need to vote and pack for the trip. Thankfully, my wife handles all of the kid packing.

Here's to hoping that this thing passes today/tonight! :-)

I think I can...

Was the little train that could yesterday.. Sunday was long run day, but waking up I just didn't feel like I was going to make it. Kids have been sick and up/down all night long making the sleep thing, not so much... My goal was to add .5 mile to last weeks run for a total of 10.1 miles. Well, decided to just take it easy for the first couple of miles and see how I felt. Mile 2, junk... Mile 4, getting better...Mile 5, jammin'! Soooo, I just kept it up and did the whole 10.1, woohoo! Going for 10.6 next Sunday while down in Orlando, will need to do the whole MapMyRun thing as I have no idea where I'm going (staying somehwere new).

6 days.....

One week...

Good tune, good tune.... Not to mention that it's also the duration left till vacation! Rae asked, so I figured I'd give the timeline update. :-) Been watching the videos and Tivo'd episodes of Samantha Brown's specials to get everyone in the mood. Staying off site as per the usual with the family, but we couldn't pass up the space we're going to get for the same money it would have cost on-site. Five bedroom house with a pool only a couple of minutes away from the parks, what's not to like? Having said that, I'm psyched to be staying on-site for the January trip.

Going to order the new shoes today and wil hopefully be breaking them in while in Orlando. Should get some great mileage in while down there. Pesky work always getting in the way up here...

Long run tomorrow, going to start adding a half mile to my weekly long runs (per advice from Mike Greene). Based on the horrid final 3 miles of the last half I'm looking to build my endurance in order to finish better and this is route I chose. Running the distance more often will help me know what my body is going to do when I get there and help me plan for it. At least I think it will...lets hope!

The Weather Starting Getting Rough.....

Cold is moving on in here in the NorthEast, much like I'm hearing from upstate NY, MN, and Iowa. So, pro's, I'm new at this outdoor running thing during the winter, what do I buy? I've googled winter running gear and man, there's a ton of stuff out there. Has anyone done the research and learned the lessons that can be shared? Both the wife and I would really appreciate it! Speaking of the wife, Lorraine, she's doing great! Her planter facitis seems to have been treated by the cortisone shots (for the last couple of months anyhow) and she's back up to around 4.5 mile runs (somewhere in the 9ish/mi timeframe). To recap, she's planning on being up to full speed for the 2010 half marathon. Very proud of her fighting through this foot issue as she nearly took a header down a flight of stairs (carrying our son) because of it, but I'm not going to get into all of that. She's one determined person for sure. :-)

Any winter running gear advice would be awesome, thanks folks!

So far, so good..

Training is up this month, feel motivated by the so-so performance I put in at the Hartford Half-Marathon as well as the proximity to the Disney Half. Getting close and can feel it, but need this kind of month in November, December, and early January if I want to meet my goals. :-)

Starting to like working from home a bit more (from time to time that is). It allows me to get a good run in every time where it's hit and miss when I'm at the office. My home course is also a lot more challenging as well. Did 5 miles during lunch today and feel pretty good overall.

Ordering new shoes in the next day or so, these are definitely starting to break down on me. Going with the same make/model as they have served me well in the middle part of this year.

Congrats to all on the Corn-Vator run! and especially to those that ran the half marathon over the weekend! Kate and Jeff W. I believe, right? Great job guys!

Stroller Boy v. Corn-Vator

Yeah, I realize that it's Darth Vader, but ya see what I did there... Corn Elevator....huh, huh... ;-)

Anyhoo, went for my corn elevator of death run this afternoon and completed 9.6 miles in 1:24:27. Not too shabby. Wasn't looking for any kind of speed here as I still feel I'm recovering form the half last week.

Anyhoo, best of luck to the rest of you on your runs this weekend!

Stretch Goals

and no, I don't mean your goals on how much stretching you want to do, although that could be an interesting topic...

At work we have what we know as "stretch goals" and they denote those goals that are not the day to day operational tasks, but those that might be realized if the stars were aligned. As in "full implementation and roll out of a major system within a year". Probably not attainable, but with super smart planning, the right people, and a little luck....it could happen. These aren't things we get "dinged" for as long as we meet the operational goal, but something that goes on your record and toward excellerated promotion and such.

Anyhow, enough of the IT crap... I thought this priniciple could apply to training goals. So, if you have ONE stretch goal for the race in January, what would it be? Mine.... averaging 8:30/mi for the whole race. It's a stretch in that it's nearly 25 seconds a mile cut in my last two half marathon averages and I'm resigning to the fact that I'm going to have to work with only 3-4 runs (more likely 3) a week for training between now and then.

What's your stretch goal? :-)

Boy meets wall....OR...and Now..Main Street Awaits...

Hey there, hi there, ho there....no wait...that's not it.... Hello there and welcome to ALL About the Blog'n Right Along....Nope, still not it....Man, this intro stuff is hard! I need Jeff W. to write me a catchy intro I thinks :-)

Anyhoo. Yes, I hit the wall and then felt like I dragged it for the rest of the race (can you find where in the splits below? :-)). Much tougher course than the half I ran back in June by far. However, I still was able to post a better time by.....well.....16 seconds overall. 1hr56min25sec (8:53/mi average) compared to the 1:46:41 from the other half. Very dissapointed and know exactly why. Didn't get the repetitions in prior to this race as I had in the last. Something to build on for sure. My long runs need to be longer and I need to do my best on getting an extra run in during the week and work on finishing stronger. That said, I'm not completely dissapointed. It was a beautiful morning, lungs were just fine after warming them up properly (49 degrees at the start), scenery along the Connecticut River was amazing fall foilage and such... Lots of folks cheering....8,000 participants between all three races (3120 in the half, of which I finished 1147) .

Focused now on getting the training back on track for January (and WDW vacation in 20 days). The friend of mine that will be running in the WDW race ran this one as well. On a very bad knee he was able to finish in 2:40:00 so a great job to stick with it on his part as well. Although he hasn't officially joined T.V. I kinda feel he's an honorary member as I talk about y'all to him and he always asks how "the team" is doing. He'll come to the Epcot meet after the race so y'all can meet him (military vet, very proud of him).

So now.....I can really feel the words...."Main Street Awaits"!!!

PS - I'll keep sayin' it....Body Glide....best advice EVER given to me, thanks Jeff! (I think it was Jeff..Saw many bloody shirts at the finish...OUCH!!)

Splits (from my watch, pretty well in sync with the race timing)

Mile 1- 9:10 (working through the crowd)

Mile 2- 8:43

Mile 3- 8:36

Mile 4- 8:24

Mile 5- 8:33

Mile 6- 8:40

Mile 7- 8:40

Mile 8- 8:51

Mile 9- 8:50

Mile 10- 8:47

Mile 11- 9:24

Mile 12- 9:34

Mile 13- 9:51

Ready...I think...

Took in a good run yesterday, 4 mi route down here where I work. Lungs felt good...of course, the weather was beautiful and warm. Will definitely warm up the lungs tomorrow prior to the race and hope for the best. Overall, I feel good about this race though. Trying not to look too far ahead to January, of which I've been thinking more and more about. Man, that's going to be a great trip! :-)

Will post in the afternoon/evening tomorrow to let everyone know how I did.

Sidebar - Anyone have a routine a couple of weeks out prior to a race to buid up the resistance to colds and such? Thinking about this as my kids have been sick all week and hoping it's not going to get me between today/tomorrow!

Oh, and uh....22 days till WDW.... :)

Climate Change and Training

All - Had a horrid run yesterday and think it had to do with not properly warming my breathing up before running in the cooler air. Chest tightened right up and made for a painful run! Only 3 miles and ran it at 9:06/mi pace when it should have been 8:30'ish.



Found this article. May be a "duh" think for you experienced runners, but news to me! Most of my training in Feb-April was indoor, so I never had to deal with this till now. Guessing the asthema has a little to do with it in my case, but perhaps not.....going out tomorrow and will try a different approach. Saturday's start is at 8am where it's expected to be 49 degrees.



http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0NHF/is_/ai_86649559

Go Sox!

Sox moving on to the ALCS to meet the Tampa Rays..woohoo! Okay, so I know most of you aren't into the baseball thing, but I had to say SOMEthing. Ya know, since my Eagles have been stinking up the place....OY!

What's this? A little life injected into T.V. as of late? Lets try to translate that into some training folks! Heading out tomorrow for a light run in prep for the Hartford Half Marathon this Saturday. Totatly didn't expect that I'd run two of these races prior to the Disney race in January, wow. Just goes to show you what you can do when you don't think too much about it. :-) The half I did in June I decided to run like two days in advance, lol.

FYI - finished my first MBA class tonight, only.....well...a bunch more (like a year and a half worth)

The Long Run That Wasn't...

Tough day yesterday...woke up feeling a bit sick, not to mention the 5 hours of sleep. Anyhoo, I was committed to getting one long run in prior to the Hartford Half Marathon next Saturday. Was really only shooting for 9-10 miles and got 8.5 in, so it wasn't completely horrible. The local town fair is happening this weekend and is smack dab in the middle of my run route, thus the .5 cut in mileage. Anyhoo, was a little on the slow side with the hills in this route (averaged just under 9/min miles) but feel pretty confident about next weekends race. Looking to get as much sleep as possible this week and watching the diet very closely, want to be down a lb or two for Saturday.

Definitely going to purchase a new pair of kicks pretty soon as I think these are on the down-side of their life. Will hopefully take me through the half in January (the shoes that is).

Congrats to Jonathan! While we've all seemed to slow down a bit he seems to be taking off! Way to go! Keep up the energy as I think it's starting to energize the rest of us.

Oh, and GO RED SOX!!!! **Another reason I didn't get so much sleep Friday night...game ended at 1:35a east coast time..

Training Update

Ran 5 miles yesterday, 8:30/mi pace. Laps were 8:20, 8:29, 8:35, 8:32, 8: 34....From what I remember anyhow as it downloaded off the watch and I haven't checked that computer yet. Sore in right "cheek" region. Need to stretch it out better, for one, but this has developed as a theme as of the past few weeks. Happened once before with my old shoes, but the ones I'm running on now took care of it. I'm at about 350 miles on these and wondering if they are breaking down on me.... Thought that wouldn't happen till around 450 or so, but it is what it is I guess. Like this model, so I may just order the same pair on-line to save a couple of bucks (let me know if any of you have experience with this and think it's a bad idea...the on-line thing...).

Hartford Marathon/Half-Marathon Information - http://www.hartfordmarathon.com/marathonnew.htm

Elevation and course map - http://www.hartfordmarathon.com/marathonnew/race_information/half_marathon/coursemap.htm

Note - In the last couple of miles of this race we get to run down Park Street in Hartford.....This is the street made famous by it's residents allowing a man to die in the middle of the street while cars and spectators passed by... Made the national news earlier in the year. WooHoo! Just not a very good spot for running, walking, driving through with a bullet-proof car, tank, etc. Hey Rae, do those Team Voice shirts come in kevlar? ;-) If I run fast enough I'll be through there before anyone gets out of bed...good motivation!

When...Revealed!

Soooo, we had planned our trip just prior to the announcement of the MGE, and wouldn't cha know it....We'll be there just as it ends. Heading down on the 1st of Nov...Economy be damned, we're still going! ;-)

Hartford Half slowly approaching on the 11th. A little anxiety starting to build up as I haven't been able to commit to as much running as I'd like as of late. However, whenever I do get out for a training run it feels good. So I'm confident that I'll improve on the half time from June (1:56:xx:xx). Goal is the high 1:40's ....1:46...1:48....something around there. It's the last two miles that I'm most interested in. Haven't run 13 since the last half, so I've no basis for comparison. I may have the time later in the week to give it a go and see how I feel, but we'll see.

On the Eagles front....yesh, very dissapointing that the LB's can't cover a TE.....it's been exposed in all four of their games thus far. Also, in my estimation and the way the D played...they should have won by 17..... and would have if Westbrook played. In any event, I'm not worried about this team, still a very potent offense that is seeing Reggie Brown get better by the day and should have Kevin Curtis back in a week or two. The defense has played very well and will get better (if that's possible). Now, what about the Bill's? If not for a late game defensive TD, they most likely would have lost to the lowly Rams! Oh yeah, you know I was watching ;-) Glad to see they are 4-0, but based on that Rams game, I'd be concerned! Love Lynch, but he's gotta run better against bad defenses..... 4-0 is 4-0 though!

Nothing Much...

shorter runs this week and the weather hasn't exactly been condusive to running. Not worried about getting wet, but it's like flash flood conditions in CT this weekend. Will try to get a long run in on Sunday as it's supposed to let up a bit by then. Couple of weeks to the Hartford Half-Marathon....then only a couple of weeks till our Disney trip! woohoo!

Redemption..Apple-style

Okay, that's a bit much, but I just got back from my Apple-fest 10k and pretty happy with the result. 53:14. Much better than the lack-luster effort from the Corn-fest 10k. :-)

Lap 1: 8:2 7 (and up a might big hill at that...)
Lap 2: 8:25
Lap 3: 8:36
Lap 4: 8:36
Lap 5: 8:40
Lap 6: 8:43
Lap 7: 1:43

Average 8:35/mi

I woke up and Fall happened....

Sooo, I'm standing in my driveway this morning watching....my breath? Not to mention that I'm wearing a short sleeve shirt. Ah, where has summer gone. Oh well, the great part about it is that my lungs seem to work much better whilst running in said "fall-like" weather. An epiphany? Yeah, probably not. However, I was able to get in one of those quality runs that I've been talking about lately. 5.7 miles last evening @ 8:40/mi average, and it felt outstanding. Looking forward to seeing what I can do for this Saturday's Apple-of-my-eye-10k!!! Looks like a high of 65 here in southern New England, so I'm looking for some speed out of this thing. :-)

Still a ton of yard work to do. Put it on hold due to time contraints, but the mud-hole needs a retaining wall or it's going to fill itself back in... Need to get those pics of the yard that I've been promising posted.

Off to the "Big E" tomorrow. The Big E, or the Eastern States Exposition as it's called, is an enormous fair combining livestock, products, food, rides, etc. etc. from the New England states (and no...New York is NOT a New England state contrary to popular belief....but CT IS part of the Tri-State area....go figure....or at least I think it is....hmmm). This is the one time a year where I can enjoy a huge Maine baked potato, maple cream cone of Vermont, a draft Sam Adams Cherry wheat, and freshly made apple pie with cheese on it (don't ask about the cheese, I don't....). Going to need that 10k on Saturday to work off the food! LOL

Status...

Running - Fifteen days into September and I've got 28.7 miles logged. Not exactly what I'd call outstanding, but considering my schedule so far I'm okay with it. I'm trying to focus on quality runs this month given the time constraints. Friday's 8.7 would fit into that category. Averaging around 8:58/mi over ver hilly terrain is quality for me and I'm happy that I didn't lose to much ground due to the decrease in overall monthly mileage.

I'm shooting for 2-3 regular runs per week with a long run of 8+ miles on the weekend in order to keep in shape for the Hartfor Half marathon Oct 11th. I'm also targeting a 13.1 mile training run two weeks prior to Oct 11th, which would be the 27th or thereabouts. Also, the 20th is circled on my calendar as well for what I'm dubbing the "Apple a day keeps the....get my revenge from the horrid performance put in for the cornfest 10k run....wicked queen away" run. Too wordy? :-)

MBA class tonight for another 8hrs. I'm hoping that we get out early as my Philiadelphia fighting Eagles are playing the dreaded Tony Romo and his merry band of pop singer girlie friends....otherwise known as "The Dallas Cowboys" on Monday Night Football. Gotta watch this one on the TV versus a static-y AM radio station on the hour car ride home. Why can't XM radio just finish this Sirius merger and get us the NFL already! ha! Maybe that's one for Matt's political rant blog...hmmm....haven't been there in a while, perhaps it's time!

MBA...Away!

Completed the first class in my MBA program, woohoo! 8 hours of communications talk today...needless to say it was, well, communicable (is that a word? or something we use to describe diseases?). Anyhoo, I'm back to school, and no, this time I won't join the diving team and perform a triple linde. LOL

So Monday's are out for running with the all day work/class schedule, but it still leaves 6 other days to choose from. Looking forward to the Apple of our eye run on Sept 20, and getting my revenge on the 10k! MUhahahahahahahaaha...

Did y'all see my hidden Mickey or what? I'm totally non-artistic, so I was impressed! :-)

3 Miler and a Hidden Mickey?

Hey y'all, weather was beautiful this morning after the 6+ inches of rain that fell last night (remnance of Hannah). Got a 3 miler in although I cramped up in my side about a tenth of a mile into the run.... OUCH! Shorted my breathing and stride untill I could stretch it out a little more. Never was fully comfortable, but I got through it. MBA program starts tomorrow (8 hour class) so no run, but will run on Tuesday after work.

Ah, so finally I've figured out how to make my tribute to the DVC Hole in the backyard project..... When I ordered 6" stones for an area outside my pool deck I thought they'd be a bit smaller, but I think I've figured out how to use them. As you can see in the pic (taken from up above on my deck) I've supplemented it with some smaller pond stones. Got a granite bench for the area, but have to level the base before it's useable. Don't want that thing to fall on anyone! Almost broke my back bringing that thing to the back yard! ;-)